


it's nice to have a friend

by notpancakes



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21581263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notpancakes/pseuds/notpancakes
Summary: Lindsey doesn’t want to move to Portland because it means starting everything over. But luckily for her, she makes a friend who helps her fit in.(aka nobody was writing a fic to this song so I had to)
Relationships: Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	it's nice to have a friend

**Author's Note:**

> I just really love this song and thought it would be such a perfect story. I split it up by section or whatever they’re called idk anything about music anyways enjoy!
> 
> (apologies for any typos in advance)

Lindsey doesn’t want to move to Portland.

Maybe it would be better if it wasn’t in the middle of the school year, and that’d she’d have to make new friends and tryout for a new team when she was just fitting in at home.

But if her dad’s job is gonna promote him and pay him more if they move up to the Pacific Northwest, then she guesses it’s a good thing.

Portland’s cold. Not as cold as Denver, but the the constant rain seems to make it feel like it’s worse. Thankfully Lindsey’s got warm clothes and a solid pair of rain boots to keep her from getting soaked, and her mom’s already told her she’s going to get off of work early so she wouldn’t have to walk home in this weather.

Her first day of school isn’t as bad as she thought it would be. She’s already kind of made a friend with the girl who sits next to her in English class. Her name is Caitlin, and Lindsey notices that as soon as she opens her mouth, she isn’t from Portland either.

“My family moved here from Australia last year,” Caitlin explains, “so I know how you feel.”

Caitlin offers Lindsey to join her and her friends for lunch, but unfortunately they don’t have the same lunch period. So Lindsey finds herself eating alone. Nobody seems to care though, which is a slight relief. She spends the rest of the day alone as well, too shy to talk to anyone around her. But she just thinks that if Caitlin can move all the way from another country and make friends, then she can do it too.

x

Lindsey decides to get started on some homework while waiting to be picked up. She only manages to read one chapter before getting bored, so instead she checks her phone for the millionth time to see if her mom’s texted her.

“Hey, you miss your bus or something?”

Lindsey looks up and locks eyes with a girl she doesn’t remember seeing at all that day. She’s bundled up in a rain jacket, her hands shoved in her pockets and blonde hair sticking out from under a hat.

“Uh, just waiting for my mom to pick me up. Thanks.” Lindsey replies. She goes back to looking at her phone, but the girl is still standing in front of her.

“I just saw you sitting alone at lunch today so I wanted to make sure you were finding your way around alright.”

Lindsey doesn’t know what to think at first. Should she be creeped out? No. The girl is just trying to be nice. She gives Lindsey an awkward smile, and Lindsey realizes she can’t miss an opportunity to make a friend.

She sticks her hand out. “I’m Lindsey.”

The other girl grins. “Emily.”

There’s an awkward silence while they stare at each other for a second, not sure what to say next, when Lindsey’s phone buzzes. It’s her mom, and the text says she’s stuck in traffic. Emily must have noticed the disappointment on Lindsey’s face, because she asks if everything’s okay.

“I think I’m just gonna walk home already,” Lindsey announces. She might as well get used to the rain.

Emily raises an eyebrow. “How far away do you live?”

Lindsey tries her best to explain the landmarks she remembers passing on the way to school that morning, and Emily’s eyes light up. “I’m like, a block away. We can walk together.”

Lindsey quickly nods in agreement, relieved that she doesn’t have to walk alone. And hopefully, if the two of them get along, she won’t have to walk home alone for the rest of the school year.

Lindsey sends a text to her mom telling her not to pick her up anymore and follows Emily out the door. She pulls her hood over her head tightly, and is glad that it isn’t raining as hard as it was earlier.

“So where’d you move from?” Emily asks before they’re barely down the school steps.

“Colorado.”

“Oh, so you should be used to the cold then.”

“I guess. It’s the rain I don’t like.”

“Yeah, I’d take snow over rain any day.” Emily jumps around a couple of puddles and turns a corner. Lindsey notices how she seems to have so much energy, which is a nice contrast to the gloomy Portland weather.

“So, are you from Portland?” Lindsey wonders. Like Caitlin, Emily has a slight accent, but she can’t place it.

“Nah. My family moved here from Georgia but that was a while ago. I’m totally certified to be your tour guide though if you want.”

That makes Lindsey laugh. No wonder Emily reached out to her. She was the new kid once too.

They don’t talk much after that as Lindsey follows Emily through the suburbs of Portland. The houses are all painted different colors and everyone has some kind of political sign or garden gnome in their front yard. It’s different and quirky, but Lindsey likes it. One of them even has hopscotch drawn in chalk on the sidewalk.

“Ooh look at this!” Emily exclaims as she jumps right through, ignoring all the water she’s splashing on Lindsey.

“C’mon!” Emily shouts, waving a hand at Lindsey, “I promise you this is part of the way home.”

Lindsey is hesitant for a second, but she sees how excited Emily looks waiting for her and she knows she has to live a little. That and she doesn’t want to miss her chance to be Emily’s friend.

“Good job not slipping. You’ll be a true Portlander in no time.” Emily holds up her hand for a high five and Lindsey doesn’t leave her hanging.

“Hey, that one’s my house,” Lindsey taps Emily on the shoulder after several minutes and points up as they pass by a house with a chicken coop in their yard. Lindsey heads up the stairs to her porch, and Emily follows her. They stand awkwardly for a second, neither of them knowing exactly what to do.

“Uh, thanks for walking me home. I really appreciate it,” Lindsey mutters, not sure what else to say. She tries not to stare at Emily and her bright green eyes, but she can’t help it. She’s interesting.

“No problem. See you tomorrow?” Emily grins at her, her smile shining like the sun that’s stuck behind the clouds.

Lindsey just nods her head, still a little nervous about how she feels about suddenly becoming friends with someone in less than an hour. She wonders if she should invite her inside to hang out since it’s starting to pour now, but Emily gives just her a thumbs up before bounding away down the stairs.

x

The next day, Lindsey hopes that Emily will join her at lunch. She did mention seeing her eating alone after all. But as Lindsey takes another bite of her sandwich, it’s obvious she’s going to eat alone again.

Lindsey wonders if she did something wrong yesterday. Maybe Emily just felt bad for her. Maybe she has her real friends to hang out with during lunch and Lindsey’s just her walking home friend. Lindsey doesn’t like to think about that because it just means she’s back at square one again.

She decides to wait for Emily after school anyways. She already told her mom she’d walk home again today, and luckily it wasn’t raining this time. Waiting for a few extra minutes wouldn’t kill her. But after what seems like forever, she decides to just head out.

“Hey!” Lindsey hears a shout from behind her, and she spins around excitedly. “One day and you’re already ditching me?” Emily teases.

“Yeah. You ditched me at lunch so I’m just evening it out.” Lindsey makes sure to not sound serious, and thankfully Emily gets her sarcasm.

“Sorry. I was at a soccer meeting,” Emily explains, and Lindsey perks up.

“Soccer? Does the school have a team?”

“No, we just talk about which players we think are hot for an hour each Wednesday.”

Lindsey frowns. She can’t exactly tell if Emily’s joking because there could be a club for just talking about soccer at school. She knows Portland loves soccer.

“I’m kidding. Of course we have a team.”

Lindsey punches Emily in the shoulder and she’s relived that she pretends like it hurts. She’s glad that after only knowing her for a day and half, they’re already acting like they’ve known each other forever.

The rest of the way home, they talk about soccer. How Lindsey plays in the midfield and Emily’s a forward, but this year their coach wants to move her to defense.

“I would prefer to stay up front and score goals. But slide tackling is pretty fun too.”

“You slide tackling someone? That’s something I want to see.”

“You can see it when we play together,” Emily replies, and Lindsey feels a rush of excitement at the idea. “Unless you suck and don’t make the team.”

Lindsey gives Emily another punch in the shoulder, and then Emily gives her one right back.

x

This time, when they’re on Lindsey’s porch, she makes sure to ask if Emily wants to hang out.

“My brother has Fifa on his Playstation. Wanna play?” She asks, and she watches as Emily thinks for a second.

“I guess I can play for a bit. But don’t get mad when I beat you.”

But Lindsey is the one doing all of the winning, and after the seventh goal, Emily flops onto her back in defeat.

“Okay. I guess you’re good. I just hope you’re that good in real life.” Emily groans and Lindsey throws a pillow at her face.

It’s starting to get dark outside, and Emily realizes she needs to head home, even if she doesn’t want to. She’s glad she decided to be nice and talk to Lindsey after school, because she genuinely likes hanging out with her.

“That game was just a warm up. Tomorrow it’s really on.” Emily tosses the pillow back at Lindsey and gathers her stuff, smiling at the use of the word tomorrow.

“Just admit that you suck at video games,” Lindsey teases as she walks Emily to the door.

“Nope. Never. I’ll see you tomorrow Horan.” And then Emily pulls Lindsey into a hug before she runs out the door.

x

They continue to walk home together the next day. And the next day. And the day after that, until the rain washes away the hopscotch on the sidewalk and turns to snow as it starts to get colder. Sometimes they play video games after, sometimes they study. Lindsey always seems to forget her gloves at home, so Emily always lets her borrow one of hers until she just buys her her a new pair.

“I’m not leaving until you promise not to lose these,” Emily’s staring straight into Lindsey’s eyes, her hands clasped on her shoulders.

“I promise,” Lindsey groans.

“Good. Now put them in your backpack. Those were expensive.”

Lindsey knows the gloves were from the sale bin at Target because she watched Emily buy them for her, but she stuffs them in her bag anyways.

One morning the weather is miserable. It isn’t exactly snowing but it isn’t exactly rain either. Just an ugly mix of slush and grey clouds that makes Lindsey want to stay in bed all day.

Her dad has the day off and tells her he’ll pick her up after school so she doesn’t have to walk through the storm. For a second she wants to tell him it’s fine because she wants to walk home with Emily, but she remembers that she lives down the street from her. She knows Emily would be glad to not get soaked.

After school Lindsey tells Emily they won’t have to trek through the nasty weather and is surprised when Emily declines her offer for a ride home.

“You live like, right down the street. Not that big of a deal.”

“I told you it’s fine Linds. I can walk. Get my steps in, you know?”

Lindsey’s confused about why Emily’s so against getting a ride home. She’s also a little confused about Emily calling her Linds, because nobody really calls her that, but she doesn’t mind it.

Eventually, she sees her dad’s truck pull up outside and she just grabs Emily’s arm and drags her outside with her.

He happily greets the two of them, and Lindsey realizes she’s never formally introduced Emily to anyone in her family.

“This is the Emily I was talking about. She plays on the school’s soccer team.”

Emily gives him a firm handshake and settles into the backseat like it’s her own car.

“The Emily huh? Are there other Emilys in your life I should be concerned about?” She jokes, arms crossed like she’s mad.

“Yeah. You’re currently my third favorite, so you’ve got some work to do.”

Emily just shrugs. “I guess it’s not fair for me to be the best at everything.”

Lindsey’s dad interrupts their banter for directions to Emily’s house, and when she starts telling him where to go, Lindsey notices they’re going in a totally different direction from what she’s used to.

“It’s that yellow one,” Emily points to a house at the end of the street after driving for a few minutes. Lindsey’s still confused. Emily said she lived a block from her, but they’ve gone several streets past that.

“Thanks Mr. Horan. See ya tomorrow Lindsey.” Emily hops out as the car stops and quickly runs through the hail to her door. Lindsey’s dad waits until she’s inside before turning back to her.

“I thought you said she lived down the street?” He ponders.

“I did too.”

x

They keep walking home together, although now it’s awkward because Lindsey knows Emily doesn’t actually live as close as she says. Emily doesn’t say anything about it to Lindsey, so she doesn’t ask. She also doesn’t want to make whatever routine they have even more awkward than it already is. She just pretends that it’s because Emily is being a good friend and nothing else.

Thankfully, Emily’s introduced Lindsey to her soccer friends, and they all hang out at lunch. They’re a good distraction for Lindsey, so she’s not always constantly hanging out with Emily. Not that she’s tired of her or anything, but she knows she needs more than one friend.

They’re an interesting bunch. Rose is feisty but great at giving advice. Sam helps Lindsey with her homework and it turns out she’s a genius. And Mal also happens to be from Denver, so her and Lindsey instantly become close.

They invite her to a sleepover at Sam’s the first night of winter break. Sam’s parents are away for the weekend and her older sister is in charge, and she’s decided to throw a party. So the five of them are cramped into a tent in Sam’s backyard, squished together with a giant heater to keep them warm.

Rose wants to play truth or dare. Emily wants to play charades. Mal’s already falling asleep.

“There’s no room in here for charades,” Rose complains, throwing down her deck of cards onto the ground.

“We have a whole backyard,” Emily argues.

“It’s dark outside! How are you supposed to play charades if you can’t see?”

“Fine. One round of truth of dare,” Emily just rolls her eyes, “and then we play charades by flashlight.”

Sam runs inside to go grab a water bottle. Rose is busy on her phone trying to find a picture of her dog to show to Lindsey and Mal is already snoring. Emily’s busy scribbling something on a piece of paper from their earlier game of hangman.

Lindsey is swiping through Rose’s camera roll when a crumpled up ball of paper hits her in the head.

“Rose, that’s not for you!” Emily scolds, glad Lindsey was fast enough to swipe it before her. She opens the note up quickly to see ‘Dare me to play charades’ written inside of it. She just shakes her head and giggles.

“Let me see!” Rose says, grabbing the paper from Lindsey. She just rolls her eyes before crumpling it back up and throwing it at Emily.

Sam arrives just in time with an empty beer bottle.

“This is all I could find. Let’s get wild.” She cheers before giving the bottle a spin.

It lands on Mal, who Rose has to shake because she’s out cold.

“Truth,” she mumbles, and Sam thinks for a second, her chin in her hand.

“Is it true that you have a crush on Dansby from gym class?” She asks after a minute.

“Duh. I thought you all knew that. You’re supposed to make this game hard Sam.” Mal just closes her eyes again and Rose grabs the bottle.

It lands on Lindsey. She picks dare, which she then immediately regrets because she’s gotten to learn how devious Rose is.

“I dare you to... tell us who your crush is. If you have one.” Rose raises her eyebrows suspiciously. “Since you’re new, we can tell you if they’re worth it or not.”

Lindsey tries to think of all of the people she’s gotten to know since she moved to Portland, but she hasn’t really hung out with anyone besides the four other girls sitting with her.

That’s when she notices that Emily is the only one not staring at her, waiting for an answer. Even Mal’s awake and interested in what Lindsey has to say. Emily’s looking down at the ground and shuffling their deck of cards.

That’s when it hits Lindsey. That she does have a crush. And it’s on Emily.

“Hello? Earth to Lindsey. Do they not play truth or dare in Denver?” Rose waves a hand in front of her face and she snaps out of it.

“Um-no. Nobody yet.” Lindsey lies, hoping none of them catch the hitch in her voice. From the corner of her eye, she notices Emily’s now staring at her.

“Boo. But I get you. Dansby’s the only hot guy in the whole school,” Rose jokes and Mal smacks her on the arm.

“That is my man Rose. Get your own.”

They play until everyone’s gone at least once, and then they end up telling scary stories until they all fall asleep.

x

Lindsey blames her trouble sleeping on the loud music coming from the house, but she knows it’s not that. She’s thankful her friends are all deep sleepers as she grabs her coat and steps over them into the cold to think.

She’s shivering, but at least it isn’t raining. She shuffles over to a lawn chair and leans into it, staring up into the stars.

She tries to pinpoint the moment when she realized she liked Emily, but the past few months have been a blur. Was it that time Emily joked about Rose being pale that it made milk shoot out of Lindsey’s nose? Was it that time Emily stood up for Lindsey when one of the football players catcalled her in the hallway? Or when Emily went black friday shopping with when nobody else wanted to even though it was 5am and Emily had a cold? They’ve hung out together so much that it’s hard for her to figure it out.

And her walking home with her every single day when she lived in the other direction. She was probably just being nice, but Lindsey hopes it’s more than that.

She gazes up at the stars, the constellations reminding her of the freckles on Emily’s face. She then hears the tent unzip and she spots someone’s shadow walking towards her.

“What the hell are you doing out here? It’s freezing!” Emily calls through chattering teeth. She takes a seat in the chair next to Lindsey and looks up at the sky with her.

“I can’t sleep. That stupid music is too loud.”

“See, if I was in charge of the music, everyone would be a lot happier right now.”

“So what you’re saying is that your music is so bad it puts everyone to sleep?”

“Shut up. You know what I meant.”

Lindsey chuckles softly. It’s silent between the two of them, the music from the party in the distance thumping as fast as Lindsey’s heartbeat.

“Hey Em, can I ask you something?” Lindsey finally says.

“I thought we were done playing truth or dare.”

“No, be serious for just a sec.”

“Uh, sure. What’s up?”

Lindsey notices the slight worry in Emily’s voice. For a second, she debates on just letting the issue go, but she also doesn’t want it to keep eating away at her. It’s going to come up eventually.

“Why’d you lie about where you live?” Lindsey asks slowly, still staring up at the night sky because she’s too nervous to look over at her friend.

“I was being nice. You obviously didn’t know what you were talking about so I was just making sure you got home safe,” Emily replies after what feels like forever. She’s talking seriously for once. Lindsey hears Emily shift in her seat, but she’s still too nervous to look over.

“But after that. You kept walking with me. You didn’t need to.”

“But I wanted to.”

Lindsey doesn’t know why those four words hit her like a ton of bricks. She doesn’t want to overthink it. But Emily’s tone makes it seem like there’s more to it.

She looks over at Emily anyways and they lock eyes and Lindsey’s lost in a sea of green. The music from the party has stopped and it feels like time has too. She can tell Emily’s in deep thought by the way her face scrunches up. What she’s thinking about, she has no idea. She’s just never seen her so concentrated, so serious.

Suddenly, a smile breaks across Emily’s face and she starts laughing like crazy.

“It’s probably because you’re the only one likes my jokes,” she chuckles loudly, and Lindsey furrows her brow for a second at the sudden change of mood between them. But she eventually laughs too, ignoring the empty feeling growing inside of her.

“Someone has to make you feel good about them,” she plays along, hoping Emily doesn’t notice her frustration about them never being able to have a real conversation.

“Well duh. That’s what good friends do.” Emily just gives her signature smile back. But this time, it doesn’t warm Lindsey up like it usually does. This time it hurts, because it confirms that Emily doesn’t feel the same way.

“It’s too cold out here. I’m heading back to the tent.” Lindsey gets up quickly and doesn’t offer for Emily to join her.

“See you in the morning!” She calls, but Lindsey’s already disappeared into the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> so that turned out longer than expected! poor Emily using humor to hide her feelings wow relatable anyways two things:
> 
> 1.I have no idea how accurate my portrayal of Portland’s weather is I just know it rains there so  
2\. Next chapter is in currently in progress but may take a while
> 
> hope y'all enjoyed it!


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